New research from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Madrid’s IE Business School has found that the age of executives is on the rise, as is the time spent in their roles—lingering effects of a financial crisis that eroded career growth at the highest levels of the corporate ladder.

For decades, executives bounced around from company to company, taking ever less time to climb to the top of the corporate ladder. But that was before the recession hit. In recent years, even top corporate leaders saw their paths stalled, says Peter Cappelli, one of the study’s authors and a Wharton management professor.

One problem is that the oldest generation of executives delayed their retirement post-2008, prohibiting the next employees in line from taking their seats. When companies did have vacancies, they found it difficult to lure fresh talent from the outside: workers were afraid to make changes amid the economic uncertainty.

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